My greatest love, my truest friend.  You will never know how much you mean to me.

In honor of your birthday, and because you and I share a huge love of movies, here's a little quiz I created for the occasion.  You'll probably know all the answers, so I leave it open to our friends to guess which films these quotes come from.

So c'mon, friends, give ( Read more... )

We had a fun time celebrating Devon's birthday last night!  (Her birthday party with her girl friends will be in a couple of weeks, but luckily she had not yet found her family a source of embarrassment!)

Here are some photos:

( PHOTOS!! )

She is bold, determined, and ready for anything.

( Read more... )

Devon has asked that we start a new game called "C.S.I." in which we set up a mock crime scene, and then she comes in and studies the clues to try to figure out who the body is, how s/he died, and who killed him/her.

How cool is that?  Morbid, but cool.

The day was grey, cold, wet, and made even worse by intermittent snow and hail and various nasty and lingering coughs and colds.  But inside my folks' place it was warm and cozy, and made cozier still by good food, good songs, and great company.

( More photos behind the cut!! )

Jeff:  Tallis, do you like making up songs?

Tallis:  Oh yes, Dada!  I love making up songs!  And do you know what?

Jeff:  What?

Tallis:  I love making up stories.  That's called lying!

At Devon's school, Cycle Three---grades four, five and six--- is having a French spelling Bee to celebrate "Semaine Francaise"  at the end of April ( Read more... )

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After the songs, Tallis wanted to tell me some stories, which she insisted that I write down, as I had the songs, and then read them back to her.  (Oh, the many ways Tallis can stretch out bedtime.)

Here is the most  . . . interesting of her stories:

One day there lived a little penguin named Coldy.  She wanted to eat a caterpillar.  And she found ( Read more... )

Here are some new songs that Tallis sang for me. When she started, I told her 'Hold on!" and ran for paper and pen.  I copied these songs down as faithfully as I could, grammar errors and all! (The song titles, punctuation and stanza breaks are mine.)

Fairy Song I

When I was a fairy
I changed the days.
I made it spring.
I flied with my friends,
And I ( Read more... )